The ministry first announced plans for the consulate in May 2023 following Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Russian officials have since repeatedly visited Syunik’s capital Kapan for that purpose.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Yevgeny Ivanov said in June this year that Moscow expects to inaugurate the mission “by the end of the year.” Russia’s ambassador in Yerevan said the following month that this requires “further steps” by the Armenian government.
The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said on Wednesday that “nothing has changed since then.”
“The Armenian side has agreed in principle to the opening of the Russian Consulate General in Kapan, Syunik region,” Zakharova told a news briefing. “The Russian side has requested a formal recognition notice on the consul general. We are waiting for a response.”
“Why and what the reasons are for the failure of the Armenian side to send us relevant response materials is a question for Yerevan,” she said.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry did not comment on the thinly veiled rebuke on Thursday. It earlier declined to react to a newspaper report in June claiming that Yerevan is trying to scuttle the opening of the Russian consulate through Kapan-based activists of Pashinian’s Civil Contract party. Some of those activists denied the report.
Russian-Armenian relations have deteriorated further over the past year, with Pashinian freezing and pledging to eventually end Armenia’s membership in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Early this year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Pashinian’s administration is “leading things to the collapse” of bilateral ties.
Syunik is Armenia’s sole region bordering Iran. Azerbaijani leaders have been demanding that Yerevan open a special corridor connecting Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave through Syunik. Iran, which inaugurated a consulate in Kapan in late 2022, is strongly opposed to the extraterritorial sought by Baku.
In October, the Armenian government announced that Russian border guards will leave Armenia’s sole border crossing with Iran by January 1 while remaining deployed along the Armenian-Iranian border.